A Rich, Engaging Redesign for a Nonprofit Investment Education Website and Membership Portal
American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) Website Redesign
Overview
Established in 1978, the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) is an independent nonprofit committed to educating individuals about effective asset management. Their approach is not about quick riches but smart investing, grounded in education and long-term strategies.
Overwhelming and poorly organized content kept a robust investor toolkit from being used by AAII’s members.
Discovery
In order to increase their subscriber base and better engage their members, AAII asked SPINX to guide them through a strategic rethinking of their website content.
We kicked things off with two of their core pages: the public facing homepage and the logged in member dashboard.
As with many of our projects, we started by conducting a comprehensive discovery process to understand AAII’s goals and objectives. We discussed the needs of both members and non-members at length with the AAII stakeholders and took a deep dive into their website and marketing materials to better understand their products.
Our research revealed that AAII members were feeling overwhelmed with where to start their educational journey and were seeking a more intuitive portal for accessing tools and resources. Non-members frequently found the organization’s outdated website unattractive and had a hard time understanding how AAII could actually help their lives as investors.
before
UX Strategy
Once we had a clear grasp of AAII’s goals and the pain points for members and nonmembers, we began the strategy process.
We started with the public-facing homepage. Our goal was to give AAII a fresh, modern look and feel while improving navigation and content organization. This is an extremely content-rich page and conveying the invaluable perks of joining AAII in a straightforward manner was a top priority. We began with the development of wireframes, methodically structuring page components and determining content prioritization before transitioning to the design phase.
We then turned our focus to refining the membership dashboard page. AAII’s main goals here were to reduce churn, increase engagement, and encourage subscribers to upgrade their membership. Applying the same level of care to meticulously organize content, we prioritized content within a wireframe in a way that would help members discover valuable tools while showcasing essential information for power users.
Build
With the foundation of those pages in place, we began the process of making them visually captivating.
Again, we started the visual overhaul with the homepage. Through skillful design, we brought visual allure to the forefront, showcasing AAII’s impressive range of tools and resources and strategically positioning compelling calls to action to encourage new subscriptions.
On the member dashboard, we established a beautiful new design language for tables, charts, and stock tickers. We also prioritized the most exciting, dynamic content by pushing it to the forefront of the portal so members could see it when they first log in. Finally, we implemented several engaging calls to action throughout the portal to encourage members to upgrade for access to additional complex tools and resources.
After the design was complete, we began coding the front-end markup. The front-end development of the site utilizes the latest HTML/CSS and was built using a responsive framework for an optimized experience on any device.
Close coordination with the AAII team was the cornerstone of our approach to confirm that the new design and its dynamic interactions seamlessly complied with their system’s functional criteria.
Test & Launch
After the coding was complete, we jumped into rigorously testing everything.
We wanted to ensure the page designs would work on any browser or device, and got busy fixing any issues we found. Following this, we handed over the code to the AAII team for their rigorous testing and streamlined back-end integration.
Closing Thoughts
The AAII redesign is a great example of how a well-executed UX strategy can lead to a more effective, higher converting website that increases value for members and nonmembers alike. By taking the time to understand the needs of their visitors and members, we were able to create a new website that is user-centric and highly engaging, helping AAII achieve their goals of increasing their reach, engagement, and ultimately conversions.
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